The Seventh SlayerBy Kantayra
Chapter Twenty FourWhen Isabelle awoke after a very uncomfortable night’s (or was it day’s?) sleep, she found that Alex had returned and promptly rolled her eyes. “Don’t you have anything better to do than bother me?” she demanded sarcastically.
He merely grimaced in response. “Not exactly keen on hanging out with all these Watchers,” he finally admitted. “You’re the only on else here.”
Isabelle let out a resigned sigh. “Then you might as well be useful,” she decided.
Alex gave her a suspicious look.
“What?” Isabelle inquired. “You get to use me as a sounding board, but I don’t get anything in return? How is that fair? Especially since you so owe me for the whole kidnapping thing…”
“What do you want?” Alex asked warily.
“Well, knowing where I am would be nice for starters.”
“Why?” His eyes instantly narrowed.
“Because half of SCBI is listening in on the micro-recorder in my boot,” Isabelle retorted sarcastically. “Because I need something concrete to think about,” she finally responded to his annoyed expression, “and I’m sick of thinking about you.”
He almost cracked a smile at that. “Fair enough,” he agreed, obviously amused. “We are in the lovely state of California. About two hours away from LA, little town called Sunnydale.”
“There are dungeons in California?” Isabelle asked in disbelief.
“There used to be a Hellmouth here,” Alex responded. “You’re be amazed at some of the things this town has.”
“Why’d they bring me here?” Isabelle wanted to know.
“Secret Watcher’s base,” Alex responded. “Caught me by surprise, too. You see, this is where SCBI was first founded. The Watchers figured no one would ever think to look for them back here, I guess. And they were right, too.”
“Just great,” Isabelle sighed, banging her head back against wall. She though for a moment, then asked, “How many?”
Alex looked at her curiously. “How many what?”
“How many Watchers?” Isabelle clarified. “We took a huge bulk of them out back in England, so how many can there be here?”
Alex shrugged.
Isabelle rolled her eyes. “You can stop being paranoid,” she informed him. “It’s not like I’m assessing the enemy troop numbers for when I break out…”
“No, I mean, I don’t know,” Alex shrugged again. “They’re not exactly showing me charts of troop deployment. In fact, I’m rather under the impression that I’m under house arrest.”
“And these are the people you side with?” Isabelle asked sarcastically. “Oh yeah, they’re so much more trustworthy than SCBI…”
“They carried out their part of the bargain.”
“To take out the Witches?” Isabelle snorted derisively. “Think about it. Their numbers are dropping, they no longer have a majority of Slayers…the only chance they have is to attack through magic! Which means they needed the Witches out of the way, anyway. They were only doing it for themselves.”
“Maybe,” Alex conceded, “but I was involved, and that’s enough.”
“You’re warped, do you know that?” Isabelle sighed.
“It’s not warped; it’s vengeance!” he insisted.
“Yeah, whatever,” Isabelle realized that the conversation had turned back to Alex again and let out a weary sigh.
He watched her silently for a moment, the expression on his face unreadable.
Finally, Isabelle spoke once more. “What are they going to do to me?” she asked almost timidly.
Alex sighed. “I honestly don’t know,” he replied, “but, whatever it is, I think you’ve got some time. There’s something else being planned here, something important…”
* * *
“OK,” Buffy said, pointing to the map in front of her, “we’ve got no idea where Alex took Isabelle, so we’re going to use the trial and error method.”
“Oh, tha’s just brilliant,” Spike scoffed. “We’ll find ‘em by the time I’m two hundred, if we’re lucky.”
Buffy favored him with an annoyed scowl. “You got a better plan, wise guy? ‘Cause I’m taking suggestions…”
Spike conceded her point with a tilt of his head.
“All right then,” Buffy nodded, “these are the known Watchers’ hideouts in the area.” She pointed to several red dots on the map.
“I don’t mean to be pessimistic,” Ajaya began apologetically, “but do we even know they’re still in the area? Couldn’t they be anywhere on the planet by now?”
Buffy nodded grimly. “We’ve got every unit across the world on alert,” she said, “but a lot of them have other priorities at the moment.”
“What could possibly be more important?!” Ajaya demanded.
“That apocalypse starting in Korea right about now comes to mind,” Buffy retorted.
Ajaya bit her lip. “I’m sorry,” she finally said.
“Don’t sweat it,” Buffy shrugged. “Nicky, you’ll be piloting. Sun picked a hell of a bad time to come back out…”
“I’m fine with it,” Nicolas assured her.
“Good,” Buffy nodded, “we’ll try Surrey first and then go north from there. With any luck, the Witches’ll be getting back to normal sometime soon, and we’ll get a bit of magical help. Now, get ready, people. We leave in ten minutes…”
* * *
“Aha!” Lily exclaimed victoriously as her finger pressed down into the center of the page of the book before her.
Dawn and Melissa both looked up from their own research curiously.
“The Opprimitae were once a ancient race of dark Witches,” she summarized the text. “In the year 511, they were cursed by the last Order of white Egyptian mages. ‘Trapped forever without form, they are mere shadows of beings, doomed for eternity to be powerless to effect the world around them, except…’”
“Except what?” Melissa demanded.
“ ‘Except to render void those like them’,” Lily’s brow furrowed. “ ‘One who has breathed the breath of an Opprimita shall become themself a shadow, another drop in the pool of blackness’.”
“I give up,” Dawn frowned. “What does it mean?”
“I think,” Lily began worriedly, “that it means that if we don’t get the Opprimitae out of the moms soon, they’ll be transformed into them as well.”
“How do we kill them then?” Melissa demanded.
Lily’s finger trailed down the page. “The only way to kill the Opprimitae is to kill the host it has possessed before the transformation has been completed.”
“We can’t kill them!” Dawn exclaimed.
“I have no intention of doing so,” Lily nodded. “Someone is controlling these things, using them. And I’m willing to bet that we can somehow wrest that control away from them.”
“How?” Melissa asked.
“Well,” Lily began, “now we know what we’re looking for exactly. It should help us narrow down our search.”
“I’m up for another library trip,” Dawn agreed, grabbing her purse and keys. “Absolutely everything we’ve got cross-referenced on Opprimitae?” she inquired.
Lily nodded. “For starters.”
Dawn headed back to the mansion on her errand.
“It’s curious,” Lily commented, opening up a fresh book.
“What is?” Melissa inquired.
“First the modifications to the Magic Drinkers, and now controlling the Opprimitae… The Watchers are focusing an awful lot of effort on defeating our magics…”
“We know most of their top Mages are still on the loose,” Melissa replied. “It’s probably just their strongest means of attack.”
“Probably,” Lily said thoughtfully, “but we’re so dependent on magic… We have no idea what vulnerability they’ll play off of next, and we’ve got absolutely no way of counteracting it with all our Witches gone.”
“You’re worried?”
“Immensely.”
* * *
Nicolas landed the small aircraft in southern Virginia, the blackened windows of the cockpit protecting him from the sun’s deadly rays. He cursed the fact that he hadn’t got his own Ring of Amara yet as he watched the rest of Beta and Gamma Teams disembark, Buffy and Spike taking the lead.
Watcher activity had been spotted in an old estate house just outside the small town of Chester, and it was stop number fifteen on their list. To say it had been a long night was an understatement, but no one wanted to rest until Isabelle was found and Alex’ involvement in her disappearance was cleaned up.
As they approached, this latest mansion looked at first to be as abandoned as the rest of them. Buffy quickly indicated that Jeren should take his team to watch the back door while Buffy’s burst in the front.
A strange tingle went down Ajaya’s spine as they approached the door. “Something’s off,” she said softly.
Spike nodded. “Feel it too, Petal.”
“We still go in,” Buffy declared. “That could mean that this is the place…”
What they weren’t aware of was that, at that moment, Jeren’s hand had caught hold of the knob of the back door and was slowly turning it…
The sound of the explosion that followed was deafening.
Fortunately, Buffy’s team had been almost twenty feet from the house when the explosion occurred. They all ducked for cover as fast as their reflexes would allow, but it wasn’t enough to spare them from all the debris from the exploding house.
Ajaya took several sharp points of glass in the stomach and legs. However, it was nothing too bad given her Slayer resilience. She was on her feet again in a moment.
Spike and Monica had preceded her, both looking a bit dusty, but none the worse for wear.
Buffy shakily rose to her feet a few seconds later. A foot-long piece of metal shrapnel had embedded itself in her right shoulder, and she pulled it free with a wince of pain. Blood bubbled up in the wound, soaking her shirt a dark, sickly brown, and her arm hung limply at her side. But she was obviously still in the battle.
Xeris was a different story. The Velik Demon lay on his side on the ground, the massive gashes on his forehead and gut bleeding a thick navy-blue blood. Ajaya didn’t know what it took to kill a Velik Demon, but if he were a human, she’d have put his chances of survival at zero without serious medical attention.
Barring them from acquiring this medical attention were nine figures on the horizon. The three in the center – and far to the back – of the group wore the distinctive bright robes of Level 10 Mages. The other six Ajaya quickly identified as Watchers’ mercenaries. Only these six seemed to be surprisingly unarmed.
Buffy and Spike exchanged a glance at that, but their questions were answered as the three Mages began to chant.
“Confirmate!” the leader of the circle finally cried out.
Ajaya watched in horror and astonishment as the six mercenaries seemed to grow before her eyes. The muscles on their bodies rippled and expanded, their fingers elongated into sharp claws, and they towered up to ten feet.
“I hate that spell,” Spike complained as the six all rushed them simultaneously with a war cry.
“You three hold them off,” Buffy quickly ordered. “I’ll guard Xeris in case any of them get through.”
“Not gonna happen, luv,” Spike assured her, shifting into game face.
Buffy hoped he was right and shifted as well.
Monica’s pupils narrowed to black slits amid green-gold cat’s eyes, and razor-sharp claws extended from her nails.
Ajaya felt woefully under-armed with just her pike to defend herself. She gulped, and then dodged the first massive swipe as the first of the enhanced mercenaries reached her…
Siobhan was the only member of Gamma Team to rise to their feet after the explosion. Having only been half-corporeal at the time of the blast, the shrapnel had harmlessly passed right through her. However, she was still significantly stunned, and it took her a moment to realize what had happened.
With a silent gasp, she saw Jeren lying closest to the blast, his face and torso mangled by broken glass and burns. She ran over to him, completely unaware of the Watchers that approached with laser rifles.
In despair, she collapsed to her knees beside him, her hand reaching out cautiously to stroke his one undamaged antenna. It was an intimate gesture she’d never had the chance to make before, and the fact that he would never know how she felt brought the first tear to her eye in all her life. A second soon followed it, and then a third.
The Watchers surrounded the spectacle of the pale, waif-like woman mourning the wounded demon and prepared to fire, and…
A sound escaped Siobhan’s lips. A desperate sob, followed by a wail.
The Watchers were instantly on their knees, clutching at their ears in pain.
Siobhan’s wails increased in intensity, and she noticed the presence of her love’s murderers for the first time.
Cold, blue, pupil-less eyes narrowed on the weakened men. She slowly rose to her feet, deliberate purpose in her gesture.
“You have brought pain to the bean sidhe,” she said in a musical, lilting voice that was so beautiful it was deadly. “Death shall be your reward.”
The Watchers let out one final cry before their faces went slack and they collapsed on the ground, dead eyes open wide in wonder.
Siobhan returned to Jeren’s side and was amazed to see that his hand had moved slightly since she’d last been beside him. As she watched, his fingers twitched once more, and she barely repressed her yelp of glee when she realized that, despite the horrible odds against it, he was still alive…
Ajaya hissed in pain when one of the enhanced mercenaries’ claws ripped into her side. The second mercenary she’d been fending off took the opportunity to slip past her and rush at Buffy.
Ajaya realized that she didn’t have time to stop it, so she turned back to her remaining opponent, clutching her injured side with one hand and stabbing at him with her pike in the other.
He leapt back from her first stab, but then promptly fell for her feint to the left. She took the opportunity to skewer him hard in the shoulder.
The man-turned-magical-beast roared in pain and came at her all the more ferociously, teeth gleaming yellow in the brilliant sunlight…
Spike saw the mercenary get past Ajaya just as he ripped the throat out of the first of his opponents. He turned instantly to the second, eager to finish this battle fast so that he could go help Buffy.
However, mercenary number two was a lot better fighter than number one had been.
A strong fist to the jaw sent Spike flying backwards across the battlefield. He crashed right into a tree and felt one of his ribs snap. Had he been human, there was no way he’d be conscious right now.
His opponent was on him in an instant, claws slashing.
Spike barely managed to catch hold of the man-creature’s hands before they sliced his head clean off. The two opponents stood there for a moment, hands locked between them, each using their full strength to try to force the other down.
For a second, they matched each other’s strength perfectly and then, slowly, Spike began to give way…
Monica flipped backwards to avoid the rush of one of her attackers and, by the time she landed, was in full jaguar form. She leapt at the throat of attacker number one and sunk her teeth in deep before attacker number two threw her off.
She quickly scrambled to all four feet to see the two of them both rushing her…from the same side, unfortunately.
There was no way she could leap to the side far enough to avoid both of them…
Buffy frowned in concern at the chanting Mages well out of the way of the battle. Whatever spell they were casting, it was taking a lot of power.
However, before she could do anything about it, the mercenary that had slipped past Ajaya was upon her. Buffy spun to the right just in time, cradling her injured right arm up against her side.
The mercenary-beast skittered to a halt and turned back around to face her. His face was promptly met by the heel of her boot, and his head snapped back, a trickle of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth.
Buffy landed three sharp kicks in quick succession before he could recover. The rapid sequence of blows knocked him quite thoroughly out.
Buffy stood over his body and searched for a weapon to finish him off. Unfortunately, hers had been in her hands at the time of the explosion and she’d lost them.
“ ‘Reach for your weapon. I’ve already got mine’,” she quoted before grimacing in disgust. “God, I hate doing this…”
With that, her fangs ripped into the mercenary’s throat, ending his life in an instant.
“Can we say ‘ew’?” Buffy exclaimed, spitting the foul-tasting blood from her mouth.
She looked around to see what was happening around her.
Spike seemed to be caught in a battle of brute force against his attacker. Buffy felt a brief pang of worry when she saw his knees give way, but it promptly turned to a proud smile when he used the opportunity to tuck and roll, his claws slicing the mercenary’s chest open in a lightning-quick maneuver. She should have remembered that his power didn’t lie so much in pure strength, but in speed and finesse.
He instantly turned to her and raised one scarred eyebrow in inquiry when she gestured to the corpse before her.
“What?” she teased. “You think I can’t take care of myself?”
“You’re a bleedin’ menace, luv,” he replied fondly.
He quickly turned his attention to where Monica still faced off against twin opponents. However, she quickly transformed back into her human form and pulled two daggers from her belt just as the pair reached her.
One got a blade straight in the gut, the other in the arm.
Monica winced in pain as one set of claws grazed her side, but undoubtedly she’d come out of the exchange the victor.
Her remaining opponent backed off a bit, eyeing her cautiously, his shoulder bleeding copiously.
Ajaya had her opponent similarly at bay since it was now keeping well back and out of the range of her pike.
“The Mages!” Buffy quickly informed Spike now that the immediate dangers were over. “They’re up to something…”
But even as she said those words, the Mages finished their casting, and a blinding flash of red power entered the chief Mage’s eyes.
“May that which was cast be undone!” she cried aloud. “Janus, lord of beginnings and endings, I besiege you now: end that spell which has been begun! End the magic of…the Rings of Amara!”
As she cried this out, twin lightning bolts escaped from her fingers, aiming directly for Buffy and Spike.
The magical counterspell wrapped itself around the rings on their fingers, all while the bright Virginia sun beat down on them in a very lethal way…
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